Drums of War

Wanderfound · September 11, 2020, 12:51pm

“Calmly”.

NukeML · September 11, 2020, 3:41pm

There was a protest march organized in Palos Hills, IL a few days after the attacks. This is an area with a large Palestinian and Arabic population. Revisionist history indeed.

Mindysan33 · September 11, 2020, 4:17pm

I mean, we only broke, what, like 5, 6 countries? Okay, maybe like 10 tops. I’d say that’s pretty calm! Also, only SOME muslims were hurt or attacked… not like we put them in camps or anything… /s

NukeML · September 11, 2020, 4:30pm

I’m sure they left calmly too

Mindysan33 · September 11, 2020, 4:31pm

See!!! 37 million people isn’t even the population of Amuricah… drop in the bucket, nothing to fret over… /s

LurksNoMore · September 11, 2020, 7:54pm

Krugman’s usually an astute and worthwhile writer, but I can’t understand what he was thinking when he wrote that. From my PoV from across an ocean, 9/11 was when the America went mad with fear, and while many – maybe most – Americans came out of their shock sooner or later, some were permanently lost.

Wanderfound · September 12, 2020, 4:43am

Different words, same bullshit:

FGD135 · September 14, 2020, 10:39am

US military takes aim at 2024 for human-versus-AI aircraft dogfights. Have we lost that loving feeling for Top Gun?

kennykb · September 14, 2020, 5:17pm

You’re missing the point. The Army and Marine Corps don’t want them. That will make them surplus, to be handed to law enforcement for use against the leftist agitator liberal communist antifa democrat terrorist cities.

aLynHall · September 14, 2020, 6:42pm

Wanderfound · September 14, 2020, 11:06pm

Wanderfound · September 14, 2020, 11:43pm

aLynHall · September 15, 2020, 10:15am

Anyone remember the Soviet-Afghan war? The thing is, I see no reason not to believe it. We did it. What opposing nations playing the “Empire” game doesn’t do it? Financing “freedom fighters” with cash payments is bounties for the deaths of the opposing military’s personnel.

We weren’t sending billions of dollars a year for them to not kill Soviet soldiers. They want us out of Afghanistan, and they are giving money to the people fighting us. I can’t really see how anyone is shocked by this.

Mindysan33 · September 17, 2020, 8:43pm

So white supremacists actively committing acts of terrorism right now isn’t a real problem, but Hezbollah is a direct threat to the US?

JFC, this is stupid.

Wanderfound · September 18, 2020, 12:18am

Have you noticed all the progress in our might airborne fleet?
By the time a plane’s adopted it’s already obsolete.

Wanderfound · September 18, 2020, 12:52pm

“U.S. military tactics falling behind those of adversaries, Pentagon official warns,” The Guardian proclaims. “Russian Propaganda Is Pervasive, and America Is Behind the Power Curve in Countering It,” reads a report from the RAND Corporation. “U.S. falling behind in new space race, says CIA’s former head of science and tech,” cautions CBS News.

U.S. media consistently characterize the United States – a country with nearly 800 military bases worldwide and an ever-climbing annual defense budget that’s already more than a trillion dollars – as the world’s eternal underdog. Somehow, the United States military is always “lagging” or “falling behind” perennial enemies Russia, China and evil Muslim terrorists in everything from nuclear weapons, PSYOPs, Internet security and surveillance, Arctic ice cutters, intercontinental ballistic missiles, drones, dominating outer space, and the always reliable and extremely vague “military readiness.”

The scam goes something like this: A weapons contractor and military-funded think tank publishes a supposedly neutral “report” or a handful “U.S. officials” run to a media outlet insisting the United States is “lagging behind” in a sector that incidentally coincides with said think tank’s funders or government entity’s interests. Credulous American media mindlessly repeats the claims, everyone acts panicked, treating the warning like a work of good faith, sober and objective analysis. Congress then reacts and uses media coverage to rationalize even more contracts to the very funders of the think tank that raised the warning, further bloating the Pentagon, State Department and CIA budgets. Rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, all the while portraying the U.S.'s gargantuan defense expenditures as paltry and insufficient.

On this episode, we parse the trope of the always “lagging” United States, who pushes and funds it, who benefits from it, and ask why the inverse question – “what if the U.S. is too powerful and dominant over the rest of the world” – is never broached by American media, much less honestly debated.

Our guest is FAIR’s Jim Naureckas.

KathyPartdeux · September 27, 2020, 4:53pm

Mindysan33 · September 27, 2020, 5:22pm

So, how many other disputed regions are blowing up? We have this, Kashmir, the Indian-Chinese border, Crimea, Gaza/West Bank, Kosovo (esp. the northern part that borders Serbia)… I know I’m missing a ton here…

Wanderfound · September 28, 2020, 4:56am

One of the warriors roared, brandishing his sword and lunging towards the door of the inn.

He managed two steps. He was still roaring when the knife missile flicked past him, field outstretched.

It separated his neck from his shoulders. The roar turned to a sound like the wind, bubbling thickly through the exposed wind-pipe as his body crashed to the dust.

Faster - and turning more tightly - than any bird or insect, the knife missile made an almost invisibly quick circle round most of the riders, producing an odd stuttering noise.

Seven of the riders - five standing, two still mounted - collapsed into the dust, in fourteen separate pieces. Sma tried to scream at the drone, to make the missile stop, but she was still choking, and now starting to retch. The drone patted her back. ‘There, there,’ it said, concernedly. In the square, both of the inn-keeper’s daughters slipped to the ground from the mounts they had been tied to, their bonds slashed in the same cut that had killed all seven men. The drone gave a little shudder of satisfaction.

One man dropped his sword and started to run. The knife missile plunged straight through him. It curved like red light shining on a hook, and slashed across the necks of the last two dismounted riders, felling both. The mount of the final rider was rearing up in front of the missile, its fangs bared, forelegs lashing, claws exposed. The device went through its neck and straight into the face of its rider.

On emerging from the resulting detonation, the machine slammed to a stop in mid-air, while the rider’s headless body slid off his collapsing, thrashing animal. The knife missile spun slowly about, seemingly reviewing its few seconds’ work, then it started to float back towards the window.

—From Use of Weapons , by Iain M Banks.

Mindysan33 · September 29, 2020, 2:05pm

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